China sends engineers to build football stadium in Costa Rica

( dpa )- China is sending engineers to oversee construction of a national stadium in Costa Rica that was largely paid for by the Asian nation, Costa Rican government Chief of Staff Rodrigo Arias said Wednesday.

A delegation of 14 Chinese engineers is set to visit Costa Rica in February in order to launch construction of the stadium, planned to hold some 45,000 people.

The new stadium is set to be built using a 29-million-dollar donation from China.

The planned structure is expected to replace a national stadium built in the 1940s, which is very deteriorated and hardly ever used.

China has offered substantial financial assistance to Costa Rica, a country that launched diplomatic ties with Beijing in June 2007 after breaking 63-year-long relations with Taiwan. Costa Rica is now the only country in Central America that has formal ties with China.